Fort Rice State Historic Site! - The Bill Beaver Project

What Is Fort Rice State Historic Site?

This field of foundations was once Fort Rice, an outpost designed to guard transportation routes from attacks by the Sioux!

What Makes It Historical?

General Alfred H. Sully established this fort on July 7, 1864 and named it for Brigadier General James Clay Rice, who died fighting for the Union in the Battle of the Wilderness! The reason it was set up here on the banks of the Missouri River was to protect steamboats! As settlers were moving into Dakota Territory, the US military came into conflict with the local Sioux tribes, and 3,500 soldiers marched to their stations at Fort Rice to force the Sioux back onto their reservations.

The fort itself was built in its first stage by the 30th Wisconsin Infantry, and in its second stage by the 1st US Volunteer Infantry, which was mostly made up of “Galvanized Yankees,” Confederate prisoners of war assigned to manual labor!

In its 14 years as a military post, Fort Rice hosted the Great Council of 1868 when the Sioux signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which fenced them into a reservation but gave them the Black Hills (well, for six years). The fort supplied escorts for the surveyors from the Northern Pacific Railroad and later supplied soldiers in the Battle of Little Bighorn (the result of the US Government’s failure to honor the treaty signed here)! Fort Rice was replaced by Fort Yates on November 25, 1878, and the site that once housed a library and theatre in the remote plains, crumbled with the ages!

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Volunteer with the State Historical Society of North Dakota!
Donate to the State Historical Society of North Dakota!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!